You probably wondering why i put this game in the Space Sim section. Yes it plays underwater, and yes you never see the stars in this game BUT the gameplay and style of Aquanox 2 and his two prequels Archimedean Prophecy and Aquanox 1 is completely similar to classical space sims. For me the Aquanox series was a blend between Wing Commander and Privateer. Not completely open but also not completely linear.
I very enjoyed the series and liked Aquanox 2 the best. The story and the missions were very entertaining, the combat intense and exciting( and sometimes extremly difficult). The art design of the second Aquanox was also great. Every single game of the series had a unique art and music style.
Aquanox 2 ended with a cliffhanger and promised to be continued but unfortunately this will never happen.
Anyone else enjoyed this games?
Loved the original, Archimedean Dynasty, hated the sequels.
They dumbed it down, removing tactical elements such as how much noise your craft makes, and choosing passive and active sonar systems, and turned it into a mindless shooter.
I don't remember exactly, but I suspect this was another series that was ruined when it went multi-platform.
Yes the combat was very tactical in the first game, but it don't think the both sequels were mindless shooters. You needed some skills and a good knowledge of your ship to survive. But the focus was clearly more on action.
I can't really remember if it went multiplatform.
I never played any of the previous games but I did enjoy Aquanox 2 and imo it was a very different type of game that made it interesting and fun to play and for the time period they did a great job on the under water experience. With DX11 I would love to see what devs could do with another underwater action game like Aquanox 2.
Yeah, it does not do Archimedean Dynasty (or "Schleichfahrt", as the german original title was) justice to be mentioned in the same sentence with Aquanox. Though hey play in the same universe, the "Schleichfahrt" title had a more sim-like approach to it... and also a bit more free-form gameplay.
Aquanox was an arcade shooter all the way, which its developers explicitly wanted it to be.
I remember one mission in particular where you had to power into this narrow trench and then kill your engines and switch off any active sonar. This trench was filled with torpedo turrets and you could drift past unnoticed that way. What made it even more tense was that with everything rigged for silent running you were effectively blind and could only see what was in front of you through the canopy.
Some upgrades you could get would somehow reduce your noise signature so you could get away with using noisier equipment. The basic tactic was if you were able to make less noise than your enemy, or lower than his passive sensors could detect, you were invisible to him unless he could see you by eye!
Makes me want to play it again. Now where did I leave my Doom Mortar? 🙂
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